Well I didn't mean it to read as a 3rd party "got to hell" rant like it does to some extent. I know 3rd parties will come back and I think it's a bit too early to say they are ignoring the Wii. Sorry that as long as it was I didn't make some things as clear as I should have. The main issue is not whether 3rd parties will ignore the Wii, they won't, but whether it was a good idea for Nintendo to make the Wii so much different and weaker given the trouble it could cause 3rd parties. In other words, was disrupting the market worth the risk to Nintendo's profits. I think it was a safe risk for Nintendo profit wise is all. Also, while it's up for debate, I don't really address whether it's good for certain types of gamers either.
@ddobson
I agree maintaining full backward compatibility was a reason for designing the Wii as they did. There's lots of reasons they designed the Wii the way they did, some good some less good. Nintendo is trying to get third party support and it is of course always helpful to have it. I know a lot of the problems with current games and support will take time since 3rd parties missed the Wii boat.
@Origin
I agree excpet the 5 options are of course generalized. Different companies will fall in between several options so it's not a clear cut case for the market as a whole. The key point is whether any of the options being selected hurts Nintendo's profits? I think no so however the companies choose to play the Wii it won't really hurt Nintendo's bottom line. I don't expect 3rd parties to come rushing to the Wii untess it rivals the PS2's market share (if it ever does). Like I said the issue is whether Nintendo releasing a weaker system hurt it with 3rd parties so much to cause sales or profits worries and I don't think so. A more powerful Wii would have just been GameCube lite to the 3rd parties and PS360 lite to the market, it wouldn't have won either. At least this way Nintendo could win the market and so have some leverage with 3rd parties. If 3rd parties don't want to play along, it's their loss, so I think it's pretty certain they will eventually.
@Happy Squirrel
Interesting thoughts on the development process. I have to say one of the annoying things this time round is how quite Nintendo has been about development. I remember following Project Reality, Dolphin, Katana, Saturn years before they launched. It's interesting how they changed designs and direction and so forth. Now the most interesting of all the consoles by far I think and we know next to nothing about how Nintendo arrived where it did.
@Ramberk
That's pretty much what I'm saying. The way Nintendo designed the Wii the essentially can't fail. 3rd place = lots of money, 2nd place = even more lots of money, 1st place = so much money they could buy the Imperial Palace or California (yeah, you have to be really old or followed world events at a very young age to get that). Certain gamers may not like what Nintendo did but from a business standpoint it was brilliant.
